


Seasons

by lionwolves



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ben Solo Lives, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Happy Ending, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24029053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionwolves/pseuds/lionwolves
Summary: The progression of Rey and Ben’s relationship after the events on Exegol.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 8
Kudos: 91





	Seasons

When Rey awakens, the first thing she sees is Ben’s face in front of her.

She realizes that he is holding her securely in his arms, and she becomes aware of her surroundings, what has happened and what he has done to save her. 

She quickly lifts herself up, with his help, and looks deeply into his eyes.

Ben searches her eyes to make sure that she is truly okay, or rather, if she is okay with him now.

His worries are calmed when she reaches out to touch his face, gently, delicately, as if she isn’t quite sure just yet. 

_“Ben.”_

Boldly, however, does she lean in to press her lips to his, and he responds without a doubt in his mind.

When Rey pulls away, far too quickly than either of them might’ve wanted, her face brightens up into a smile. 

He smiles back at her and she notices the dimple in his cheek for the very first time. It is a true, genuine smile that she has never seen.

No one has ever seen it because he has never been happier than in this very moment with her. 

***

Their moment is interrupted by the sound of ships above them, which they both look up towards. 

“You should go,” Ben urges her, while still holding her in his arms. “Be with your friends.”

“Come with me.” 

“Well, I have to. There’s no other way off this planet,” He says, a hint of amusement in his tone. “But I can’t stay with you.”

Rey glares into his eyes for a moment. “Where will you go?”

“I have unfinished business with what’s left of the First Order. I just had to find you first. That was more important,” Ben tells her. “But I’m responsible for the destruction that the First Order caused as much as anyone. It’s my responsibility to take care of things.”

“Take Luke’s lightsaber,” Rey offers. 

Ben shakes his head. “No, no. You should keep it.” 

“Ben—“

Ben is the one to lean in first this time, kissing her a final time before they pull apart. 

“We’ll be together again,” He assures her. 

“I know.”

***

After they part ways after Exegol, Rey doesn’t hear from Ben for awhile.

She worries, amidst carrying out Resistance operations to dismantle the remainder of the First Order and anyone loyal to them. Even though she knows that she has a way to contact him through their bond, a part of her is reluctant to reach out to him. 

She wants to give him space in order to handle his affairs before he returns to her, but she is concerned that he won’t return to her.

It seems like a silly thought, considering that he is the one who asked her to join him in the first place. She remembers the moment vividly. 

His gloved hand reaching out to her while her heart beat rapidly and burned with the desire to join him. 

But that was Kylo. This is Ben, newly returned to the light and with the possibility of a whole life ahead of him, once he destroys the remnants of the old one. Does he truly want to spend it with her simply because the force has put them together? 

***

Rey tracks down a First Order officer to a previously abandoned outpost. Although not a threat individually, he could be if he were to garner support from loyalists.

It is one of the final threads of First Order remnants that they must cut down before the new Republic can flourish.

The silent atmosphere of the outpost feels eerie as she passes through it. 

Rey is shocked when she finds the First Order officer laying dead across the floor, and she immediately looks around to see who else could possibly be here and whether she is in danger.

Hearing the sound of footsteps, Rey ignites her lightsaber and moves cautiously towards the sound. 

To her pleasant surprise, the person who emerges from the dark corridor is the least expected and the one she has desperately wished to see. 

“Ben?” Rey exclaims.

“Hi,” Ben says, casually.

He has changed since they last saw each other. He still wears black, but it is a jacket and a belt around his trousers that holds a blaster. It is a good look, she thinks. 

Sheathing her lightsaber, Rey rushes to Ben and hugs him, who immediately wraps his arms around her. 

“I missed you, too,” Ben says to her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.

“I was so worried that I wouldn’t see you again,” Rey mumbles against his chest. 

“You’re not getting rid of me that easy.”

Rey pulls back to look at him. “This is it, you know. The final remains of the First Order.”

“I know. That’s why I came,” Ben responds. 

“We can walk away now with no regrets... together,” Rey tells him, before she hesitates. “If that’s what you want.”

Ben frowns at her statement that sounds like more of a question. “Of course that’s what I want, Rey. That’s all I want.” 

Rey smiles up at him. “Where will we go?”

_“Anywhere.”_

***

At first, they spend a lot of time traveling from planet to planet on the ship that Ben acquired, unsure of where to settle or if they even want to settle yet. 

The nights on this planet, in particular, are tolerably cold in Ben’s opinion, but not for someone who is accustomed to living on an arid planet like Jakku.

Rey wears more layers than normal, but Ben still takes off his jacket and puts it around her shoulders as they find a place to camp for the night.

Once they do, Rey begins to start a fire.

Without pausing or hesitating, Ben moves right over to begin helping her with it.

“Ben.”

He hums in response, continuing to make the fire.

“You don’t have to. I’ve got it,” Rey tells him. 

Ben turns to look at her, holding a piece of wood in his hand. “I know you’re used to doing things alone, but you don’t have to do anything alone anymore. I want to do things for you. Please, just let me.”

Rey finally relents, nodding.

***

As they sit around the fire in silence, there is a tension lingering in the cold air between them that they have yet to address. 

_Exegol._

“Why do you choose to carry a blaster instead of a lightsaber?” Rey asks, breaking the silence.

Ben’s gaze flickers up from the fire to her. “I’m not a Jedi.”

“Ben, you’ve returned to the light. You chose to fight with me against Palpatine, against the dark side, and dismantle what was left of the First Order.” 

“That doesn’t make me a Jedi, Rey,” He sighs in frustration. “It’s... complicated.”

“Explain.”

“It’s not like I can just go back to normal now that I’ve returned to the light because there’s no normal to go back to. I was only a padawan when I turned. I never even got to become a Jedi Knight or Master,” Ben begins to explain. “Now, I can’t just... be a Jedi, knowing that I failed before. But I am connected to the light, I can assure you of that. Can’t that be enough?”

“It is enough, Ben. I only asked because I wanted to know what you were feeling. We hadn’t talked about it, how it feels for you being returned to the light since Exegol, but I understand and I love you regardless of whether you choose to follow the Jedi path or not. I want you to always tell me how you feel.” 

“I love you, too,” Ben says, for the first time with absolute certainty. 

*** 

It is an adjustment, Rey decides to call it after much thought. Being with Ben and navigating this new terrain of their relationship as they travel through various kinds of actual terrain.

Due to their bond and their love, the choice to be together is without question and it feels natural.

However, their relationship itself is new and Rey feels painfully inexperienced on the common behaviors of being in one.

Ben appears so very calm and collected in every moment and defers to her feelings rather than pressuring her into anything. 

For instance, their sleeping arrangements turn out to be an awkward matter. 

Ben doesn’t want to be presumptuous, so he offers to sleep on the floor or elsewhere.

“No,” Rey tells him. 

They lay on their sides, facing opposite directions and at a distance for awhile before Rey flips onto her back.

Ben turns to lay on his back and watches as she moves closer to him. 

She curls up to his side, laying her head against his chest and his arm wraps securely around her body.

“Good?” Ben asks, simply.

Rey nods in response.

_It feels just right._

***

Slowly but surely, everything in their relationship starts to fall into place.

While traveling, their life is anything but stable, but their relationship is. No matter the planet, they have established their routine from the moment they retire for the night to the time they leave.

Ben often wakes up first, slowly easing out of bed so that he does not disturb Rey. 

When she gets out of bed, Rey is surprised, but happy, to find him meditating. She joins him, sitting down on the floor next to him while he is unaware of her presence.

Together, as they do everything else, they figure out breakfast for that day. 

***

“Do you miss it?” Ben asks her one night while they lay in bed in the dark. 

Rey turns around in bed to face him. “What?”

“The resistance. Your friends.”

“Of course I do. I love my friends, and the resistance took me in and gave me a home,” Rey answers. 

“Then why don’t you go back?”

Rey frowns, though she knows that he can’t see it in the darkness. “I want you to go back with me, and we could all be together, but that can never be, so I chose to be with you. Just you. And I don’t regret that. I never will.”

“You gave all that up for me, to live a life like this. I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve you,” Ben says. 

She realizes that they hadn’t yet talked about it and that this is the first time he’s admitting that to her. 

Rey reaches out to caress the side of his face, the way she did for the first time on Exegol. “You do. I forgive you. I have forgiven you. Now you need to forgive yourself. You deserve to be loved, Ben. You need to believe that.” 

Under her fingers, Rey can feel a tear stream down his face. “I’ll try.”

Rey can feel his emotions through their bond and her own eyes begin to fill with tears. “I’ll make sure you never forget.”

They kiss, tasting salt from the tears streaming down their faces. 

***

Sex is something that they ease into at just the right time for both of them.

It is more intense and intimate somehow, being able to feel each other’s emotions of passion and pleasure flowing through their bond.

Rey has nothing else to compare it to, and she doesn’t need to, but part of her wonders if Ben had any previous experiences.

Based on the way he gazes at her with eyes filled with desire, like she is the only one he could ever want, she realizes that it doesn’t even matter. 

***

One night, Rey finds it difficult to fall asleep, so she watches Ben sleep soundly beside her.

She will never get enough of how peaceful he looks while sleeping, seemingly free of all worry and regret.

Without the scar since she healed him, she thinks that he is absolutely beautiful. A lock of his dark hair falls across his face and his naturally prominent, red lips are parted slightly. 

These are details that she was never able to appreciate before, but she was never oblivious to her attraction to him. 

Her heart fills up with gratefulness that the force connected them and they ended up together despite all odds. 

Rey pushes his hair back out of his face and presses a light kiss to his forehead before she finally settles down to sleep. 

***

This planet is the hottest that they have visited thus far.

The heat hardly bothers Rey, but sweat drips off the defined muscles on Ben’s back as he lays his head against his arms next to her in post-coital bliss. 

Ben bites his bottom lip as he thinks.

“What’s wrong?” Rey asks, pulling the blanket up to cover her chest and turning on her side to face him. 

“What if I get you pregnant?”

The unexpected question surprises Rey, but she supposes that it is a valid inquiry considering that they can’t seem to keep their hands off of each other lately.

She naively figured they would leave that up to fate as they had with everything else.

Rey shifts uncomfortably before she responds. “I honestly haven’t thought about it.” 

“Do you want kids? We haven’t exactly come from the most stable family environments ourselves,” He says before realizing how insensitive it sounds. “I mean—“

“I know what you mean,” Rey replies quickly. 

“I know my parents did the best they could,” Ben continues with a sigh. “But I have to do better than that. We’ll have to stop moving, settle down, give them a stable upbringing. We won’t ever send our child away or separate from them. We’ll give them a choice of whether or not to be trained in the ways of the Jedi.” 

The corner of Rey’s lip curls up into a small smile. “You’ve been thinking about this quite a bit.” 

Ben shrugs. “I just don’t want to mess this up, Rey. If you want to have children, I have no doubt that you’ll be a wonderful mother, but I’ll have to work at it. I’ll do anything in my power to take good care of our child.” 

Rey leans in and kisses his lips. “That’s how I know you’ll be an amazing father, Ben. I wasn’t quite sure that I wanted children, but I am now.”

***

In the end, they decide to settle on a planet with a moderate climate, not too cold, dry or rainy. It is an acceptable compromise, they both agree.

They find a cozy, abandoned house near the sea in decent condition. 

In the evenings, they can sit outside and watch the sun set. 

In the horizon, they see the force ghosts of Luke and Leia looking down on them proudly, as if to give their silent approval. 

Rey turns and meets Ben’s gaze and he pulls her closer to him, protectively placing a gentle hand on her growing belly. 

After everything they’ve been through together, this is how it was always meant to end up. 

_And it was all worth it._

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this fic awhile ago and never finished it until I revisited it with a new perspective. It took a lot of work, but it was worth it because I love this pairing so much and I wanted to explore these ideas, so I hope y’all enjoy it! Let me know in the comments.


End file.
